Rossbach - Background

OK. So this is one of the major Frederician battles I have never gamed in any form. It is one of a pair of his most famous victories (both within a month of each other), so why haven't I gamed it before?

Well, it is simply difficult to stage. Not because of the size - the numbers were relatively modest. What makes it difficult is the scenario. If played from the beginning of the day, with a 2 to 1 advantage, even with a quality difference, it looks daunting if you're the Prussian. And it wouldn't really be Rossbach if it was straight fight. If you play the game from the time of the Prussian attack, then already the game is pretty much over as a contest. In naval terms, the Prussians crossed the Franco-Imperialist 'T'. Caught them end on. Enfiladed. So you wouldn't want to be the Franco-Imperialist side. It's one of those battles where, you wouldn't do what they did if you knew what happened. You'd have to have some very cleverly contrived victory conditions to encourage something close to historical behaviour. Maybe add some victory points for the possession of the Janus Hill (see below). Obviously it helps playing solo, as then you win when you lose 😉.

Rossbach was the first of a pair of battles in 1757 in which Frederick II of Prussia pulled his chestnuts well and truly from the fire. After the Spring invasion of Bohemia, which culminated in the Battle of Prague, the Prussians were defeated at Kolin by the Austrians, and then forced back over the border into Saxony. As well as coming under attack in the Bohemian-Saxony theatre, the Prussians were under threat of further Austrian pressure in Silesia, and now the Russian horde was on the march in East Prussia. To cap it all, the Imperial Diet had declared Frederick's invasions of Saxony and Bohemia to be illegal and a call went out to raise a Reichsexekutionsarmee. In addition, the French had sent an expeditionary force into Germany threatening Frederick's western flank (and the British king's Hanoverian possessions).

The larger part of the French army confronted the Duke of Cumberland in north-western Germany. A smaller French force set-out to join up with an Imperial army in central Germany to threaten the Prussian position in Saxony. Through the late Summer Frederick played a cat and mouse game with the French in the western Saxon region. As soon as the King showed his face, the French would withdraw. When his back was turned (to counter the against the Austrians in the Silesian theatre) the French stuck their noses out again. In conjunction with the Imperial or  Reichsarmee.

The Reichsarmee was a conglomeration of all the states of the Holy Roman Empire. About 2,000 of them. Well some of them. It excluded Brandenburg (Prussia), Austria and Bohemia (though Austria leant some cavalry units and light troops), Hanover and some other Protestant states allied to Britain and Prussia. Saxony was knocked out of the reckoning by the Prussians in 1756. What remained were mainly small states  - some contributing company or battalion sized units - some good, some indifferent and some downright poor. What really hampered the Reichsarmee was the fact it was drawn from so many small states - some regiments were made up of contributions from many statelets who had not served together for a generation or more. The infantry regiment of Baden-Baden was made up of 42 contingents, and the Hohenzollern cuirassier regiment was made up of 61! Another extreme example: the Abbess of Guckenzell was responsible for raising three and a third infantrymen and one-third of a cavalryman. There was no collective peacetime training, only drills and displays in the individual states. Equipment was often dragged from stores in a mouldy, rotten or rusty condition. Quite simply they were, as a whole, not ready for war.

By late October, Frederick had rushed back to Saxony to deal with the French and the Reichsarmee once and for all. And by then, the combined French and Imperial command had grown in confidence. After all, they outnumbered the Prussians 2:1. After a bit more boxing and coxing, the rival hosts ended up camping close to each other on 4th November 1757, near the town of Freyburg. The following morning after a conference, the Allied leaders decided to march their army to the south, closing the route to their line of communication through Freyburg. Seeing the Prussians remaining fixed in their camp, the Franco-Imperialists turned to the east at the village of Zeuchfeld, and continued their march on a route that would bring them due south of the Prussians' position, threatening their flank. Around here the allied columns became mixed up, with the foot and artillery in five bunched columns on platoon frontages, and the cavalry out in front. The Prince of Sachsen-Hildburgausen, in command of the Imperialists and notionally the  senior of the two allied commanders, saw an opportunity to get across the Prussians line of communications and urged his French allies to press on. After initial resistance, Soubise in command of the French agreed.

Table size superimposed on map from Duffy's Prussia's Glory: Rossbach and Leuthen 1757. I'll maybe kick off from when the allies have begun their march. The scale is wrong on this map, by the way. The scale should show 2 miles (or km) not 4. I checked against other maps and the current satellite map of the area.

At this point the Prussian king finally accepted the entreaties of his senior officers to respond. Orders were issued and the Prussian tents were quickly packed away and the whole army began an eastward march in parallel to the enemy. Observing that the Prussians were countering his intentions, Hildburghausen urged a faster pace and the cavalry spurred on a ahead. The Prussian horse, also in the van, riding quicker than the Allies, rounded the Janus Hill, and formed up at the crest. From there they charged the slightly disorganised Imperialists, and after a hard fight routed them and then followed up and dished out the same treatment to the French cavalry.

Meanwhile the Prussian infantry wheeled southwards in one extended line. With heavy guns firing overhead, they swung, in Duffy's words, 'like a closing door' onto the on-coming columns of French and Imperialist infantry. By now, the Prussian cavalry had reformed on the southern flank of the hapless foe, and delivered the charge that finally broke the enemy infantry. The carnage was immense. To the Prussian 500 dead and wounded, the allies could count 5,000 dead and wounded and 5,000 prisoners. The allied army was effectively out of the campaign for many months, and Fritz was free to march the core of his army back to Silesia for a showdown with the Austrians.

Next post, a bit more on the planned game. Orders of battle and some thoughts on the scenario victory conditions.

Jam today!

The French are finished.....

The last touches applied today.

Bases 'textured' with fine sand, coated with burnt umber, then 3 levels of dry brushed highlights. The black chaps with black bases are surplus to current requirements, but will make an appearance in Phase 2.

Le grand homme et son entourage.

l'infanterie. Finished with a sprinkle of flock.

Generals et cavalerie. The chaps are ensconced in their Ferrero Rocher boxes lined with magnetic sheet. Good job I had the foresight to scoff a lot of the Ambassador's favourite treat months ago because the price has soared. I have a couple left I think, which might just be enough for Phase 2. 

Les dragons et l'artillerie (et un canon, erm, squashé  par un géant clumsy).

I'd omitted the hat lace on the cavalry, but seeing Jon's recent post jogged my memory.

Heavy cavalry in the foreground, dragoons in the background. I've gone for dragoons in 'bedcaps' because that seems, well, more like French dragoons to me. It also breaks up the rows and rows of tricorns. These were from the H&R Marlburian range.

This little lot is supposed to represent 11 1/2 infantry brigades, 8 cavalry brigades and c 60 guns. Or c.23,000 infantry and c.12,000 cavalry. I plan to roughly double this in the not too distant future, then do the Pragmatic Army/His Britannic Majesty's Army so they'll have 3 opponents: the Prussians for the SYW, the Brits for everything, and the Austrians for a Habsburg-v-Bourbon bash in the 1740s.

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the flags are currently plain. These will be painted up in due course. H&R figures come with flags moulded on and normally I hand paint the flags to reasonable effect - good enough for the table top. One option that has occurred to me is to cut them off and use the paper flags that Baccus sell, but they don't do cavalry or dragoon standards.

Talking of Jon's recent post, the next phase will include some cavalry in bearskins. I plan to do the same regiment (Raugrave). 

So Phase 1 is complete. Will I get enough time this weekend to get Rossbach on the table? Or will I just have enough time to prepare a scenario?

French SYW update : updated

Another of those peanut butter and jam posts I keep reading about!

I’ve made solid progress with painting my French. I reckon I’m about half way through them now. It’s taken me somewhere in the region of 13-14 hours. I still have the following steps to take:

Artillery cuffs & turnbacks

Cavalry cuffs & some saddlecloths

Cavalry breast plates & swords

Horses - main coat colour where not black, blazes etc 

Infantry cross belts

Infantry barrels and bayonets

Some grenadier bearskin bags*

Flags (have to be painted!)

Basing and texturing

Touching up

General staff - 14 figures undercoated but otherwise untouched 

Half brigade of cavalry - 10 figures, ditto 

I might be ready to get them in the table for a game by the first weekend of August.

This will give me 11.5 brigades of infantry, 8.5 of cavalry, 6 of artillery and 5 stands of staff. Each horse/foot/gun brigade is two bases. I’m half a brigade short of what I need for Rossbach due to a miscalculation. I prefer to order the shortfall when I place the next order rather than ordering  them on their own. So I will slip a base of Austrians in.

The good news for me is that I’m not massively short of the additional figures needed for Minden and Fontenoy. I received the figures I need from Irregular that I can’t get from H&R (dismounted dragoons for the French and horse grenadiers in mitres for the Brits/Hanoverians). A point to note here is that I am not being totally faithful to the uniforms of units in the respective orbats though. I’ll have roughly the right proportions of white, blue and red-coats in the French armies, but what will be Irish and Gardes Suisses in one battle will be Swiss line in another (Red); and Gardes Francaises at Fontenoy will be German regiments in the SYW (blue). Gives me a conundrum with the flags though.

Sorry I forgot to take any snaps of the WIP. I’ll try to remember tomorrow.

* I’ve gone for the partially anachronistic choice of bearskin capped grenadiers. These didn’t become common until 1759, but I like em. Prior to that, they were nearly all in tricorns. I mean, make an effort to look like proper grenadiers Frenchies! The other reason I’m doing them in bearskins is because of the Blandford SYW book that we consulted in our school wargame group. That showed a moustachioed grenadier of the Swiss Regiment de Diesbach in bearskin in the section on Rossbach. One of our number drew the understandable conclusion that it was a whole regiment of grenadiers, rather than it just being the flank company. So it is in his honour I have rejected the more historical tricorn.

It seems that there’s a fair amount of scepticism about progress, especially coming from some of the other 5i partner countries 😉. So I present here for your eyes, some evidence of peanut butter and, if not jelly, st least the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ (to mix the metaphors).

A general view of 7 brigades’ worth of infantry. 3 French; 1 German; 3 Swiss/Irish. They’ll look better when the black from the sprayed undercoat on the bases is covered up.

Next up the cavalry, guns and remaining infantry.

Anyone seen a field gun lying around? Somehow one has broken free of its PVA bonding and has gone wheel about. I need to lighten up some of those horses. 

Finally, a closer shot of the infantry command.

The French have arrived

Well actually a few days ago. I have slowly been prepping them for undercoating. It took about five hours in all. Was hoping to spray them on Friday but it’s looking distinctively wet in the weather forecast.

Here they are. In my basing convention there is sufficient for 11 1/2 brigades of infantry, 8 1/2 brigades of cavalry, 3 brigades of artillery and 5 command bases. 2 bases per brigade - the figures are spaced out and will condense down to 40% of the space when finished.

More than enough for the French contingent at Rossbach, well on the way to having enough for Fontenoy and about half the number needed for Minden.

20 packs worth of metal from Heroics and Ros 

Unlike my usual practice of having separate combined grenadier units, I’ve decided to add little grenadier companies to each base. I’m also adding a mounted officer in each brigade of infantry, contrary to what I did with the Prussians and Austrians. Just because.

Yes, I know these are not the toy pics you were expecting. They will be up at the weekend.

The war bit

As promised on Sunday, here is 'the war bit' from my recent sojourn on the Baltic. The second week of the hols was based in Helsinki, and much of the time was taken up with seeing friends and family of the Margravina. Lovely people, but by Friday I felt that I'd imposed enough on folks' willingness to talk in English, so rather than accompany the ladies of the Household on another familial visit, I elected selflessly to go to Suomenlinna.

Suomenlinna is a fortress on a small collection of four islands (not sure it warrants the appellation 'archipelago') that guards the approaches to Helsinki from the sea. For facts, take a look here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomenlinna

For eye candy:

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/583/

And for the official site:

https://www.suomenlinna.fi/en/

I pootled down to the city centre on the tram and walked down to the harbour by 'Kauppatori' (a waterfront market square, which is a pleasant trip in its own right). The buses are just as efficient but trams appeal to the little boy in me. Incidentally, if you're ever that way, download the HSL app (the metropolitan transport authority). Tickets cover all modes pop public transport in the greater Helsinki area, including trains, metro, trams, buses and water buses. Usefully, the location of the apartment and the Suomenlinna island were both covered by Zone A (€2.80 for the trip). At the fortress there are museums that have entry charges, but you can wander round the fortress for free. Which I did on my first trip years ago, and got mistaken by some American tourists as a tour guide with exceptional English!

I made a beeline for the Sotamuseo (War Museum) - third visit again (although 20 years ago it was on the mainland). It's not a big museum by any means. Forget the Imperial War Museum or the National Army Museum, but it is very interesting. It's predominantly about the 20th century, from WW1 to the Arctic War via the Civil War, Winter War and Continuation War. Unfortunately there are no displays of Hakkapeliitta or other warriors of the Swedish period.  I understand there is a large archive somewhere that you can arrange to see, but I have no idea how or if you need to have 'credentials'.

After the War Museum I visited the Toy Museum (a private venture on the island). Again, a small museum but with many things of interest to the sort of people reading this blog. By the time I'd finished there the caffs on the island were closing up and I needed sustenance if I was to tramp around the fortress. Accordingly I took the ferry back to town and met the ladies of the house near the apartment with impeccable timing. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Part the First - Approach - in which our traveller avoids shocking the readers' sensibilities

Looking back to the Kauppatori. The big white building at the back is the Lutheran cathedral. The yellowish one on the right is the Presidential Palace where the impressive Sauli Niinistö sits.

The Orthodox cathedral dating from the period of Russian rule 1809-1917. 

One of the bastions on the approach to Suomenlinna 's ferry jetty

One of a sequence of massive gun barrels by the garrison church (human a few meters behind for scale). I had to edit this pic because inadvertently the photo had captured a woman in a very short skirt, and this isn't that type of website.

Garrison church

I never knew this...the pic above shows the original form of the church (built in the Russian period) which was later trimmed down to suit the Lutheran design ethic, after independence.

Part the Second - War Museum - early 20th Century

Regimental colour of the Prussian Jäger unit made up of Finnish nationalist emigres during WW1. The style is still very much like those of the Frederician period. Finnish lion shield in the centre. These Jägers went on to form the core of the White Army during the Civil War, and were regarded as the elite infantry of the WW2 period. 

I think this was a WW1 Russian cavalry officer.

Uniforms of the White Army from the civil war (1918)

The Reds (losers of the Civil War). I think more were killed by execution or in prison than in the actual fighting. One of my former tutors said that ill-feeling extended into the late 20th century in her home area of Tampere (a Red stronghold), although the Winter War did much to unite the country.

Maxim gun on carriage wheels!

Probably speaks for itself - these guys leant a hand to the Whites during the Civil War

Part the Third - the Soviet Wars

Fabulous 1:100 scale model of an infantry position in the Winter War

Cutaway from the above. Captions going from top left to right, then below: sleeping quarters for 20 men; observation cupola; machine-gun post; entrance; place for second machine-gun.

Army uniform - not sure of the rank, I didn't note it at the time - and Civil Guard

Lotta Svärd - the voluntary women's auxiliary organisation. The Lotta Svärd dates back to the 1920s and was originally for nice gels, but war time expansion led to a more 'democratic' membership. Lottas performed just about every non-frontline function. Some near the front were armed for self-protection. An incredibly important organisation. Banned after the War as a supposedly 'Fascist' organisation under the accords with the Soviets. More a cross between the WI and WRACS than Aufseherin.

See explanatory text in next picture.

Amongst Molotov's claims, was that the Soviets were coming to liberate Finnish workers and make sure they had enough to eat. It seems that amongst other things, the Soviets liberated the Finnish workers from their homes. So as well as Molotov cocktails, the Winter War gave us Molotov Breadbaskets. "Witty chap Johnny Finn!"

The war also gave us a number of jaunty ditties including the one this recent Ukrainian effort was based on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKXmVAtaMlw

The original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl2_0OCwNbg

Think this was a Swedish poster calling for volunteers

Uniform and medals of Simo Häyä (Belya Smert or 'the White Death'). Evidently not a big man physically, but as a sniper Häyä was responsible for c.500 hits - in a war lasting only 100 days! Mostly over open sights, with an old Moisin-Nagant or a Suomi SMG. Danish volunteers' flag in the background.

(1) Molotov Cocktail; (2) Finnish-made stick grenade; (3) Satchel Bomb; (4)  Explosive from 2?

Soviet AT gun with a chunk out of the shield!

AA gun(s)

Sled mounted LMG

Another model. This time of a position by a lake. Sorry about the poor quality - it was difficult to capture without glare. The position included 4 Vickers tanks/T26 dug in as pill boxes.

Ship mounted AA gun. This is massive > 2m long.

One of a series of cartoons. My favourite of the bunch!

I found this one very poignant. He looks not much older than my 16 year olds. There was a picture on a rolling display of Soviet troops, and one of those looked literally 14 years old. The rolling display on a large screen was one of my favourite exhibits. Lots of old (black and white) photos.

German radar at Malmi airfield. Top is a Freya, bottom a 'Dora'.  Malmi is still an active airport, just a few km from Helsinki's main airport at Vantaa.

No prizes for guessing what this is.

Mobile field kitchen. Whilst there were never enough of these, mobile field kitchens, along with saunas, are credited with keeping the Finnish troops going. The horse was covered in a white sheet for camouflage!

Soviet invasion map

Soviet junior officer

I like this one. The colour came out pretty true to life.  Cheap, but practical Soviet blouson. It was clear from the other displays that the Finnish uniforms were of a similar 'design ethic'.

Finnish tanker, complete with throat mike

Panzerfaust. Vital weapon in 1944

Panzerschreck. Ditto!

For the uninitiated that swastika ('hakatristsi') is an ancient, pre-historic even, symbol. The Finnish military adopted it after being gifted an aircraft by a Swedish countess c 1919 - her family had the crooked-cross as a family symbol.

Vickers Light Tank. Only about 6 tonnes. Bought by Finland in the 30s, they couldn't afford to buy them with the guns fitted, and they installed locally sourced weapons! They were already obsolete by the outbreak of the war in 1939, and were later used dug in as pill boxes.

The Big Man's service uniform. Mannerheim was a tall guy!  Must have been pushing on for 2 metres judging by this. A surprisingly plain outfit for a former (Russian Imperial) Guards Cavalry General.

Uniform of Infantry General, Axel Erik Heinrichs, Chief of Staff to Mannerheim. Heinrichs succeeded Mannerheim as CiC of the FDF in 1945.

Map case 'liberated' by Mauno Koivisto from a dead Soviet soldier. Koivisto was later Finland's first Social Democratic president, leading a very interesting life along the way. He was greatly mourned when he passed away in 2017, a few months short of the centenary of independance. During the war Koivisto served in Jäger Detachment Törni. Törni was something of a revelation as a leader in the war of raids. A dedicated anti-Communist, Törni joined the Wafer SS after Finland's surrender and became wanted by the Finnish government as a war criminal, before turning up in the US and becoming a leading light of the US Special Forces. Maj. Larry Thorne (as Törni became known in the US) was supposedly the inspiration behind John Wayne's character in the Green Berets, and died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1965. I'm not sure about that - I vaguely remember another character in the film who was a trainer of the Green Berets, who seems the more likely candidate.

Odd, but sad story this. In the map case were some embroidered handkerchiefs, maybe hand-stitched by  some beloved family member of the Soviet officer. I'll leave it there.

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Let me know if you want to see some old toys next.