Talavera 208 – Game Three

[carojon]

This weekend we played the third and final running of the Talavera-Afternoon Attack scenario using Carnage & Glory II.

In this final game the French sought to refine the tactics of the previous encounters with even more close in sustained artillery fire backed up with copious amounts of French infantry and cavalry.

This produced a really tense and exciting game that had a real twist right at the end.

If you would like to see how things turned out then just follow the link to JJ’s

https://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/talavera-208-afternoon-attack-208th.html

Jonathan (JJ)

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[PaintingLittleSoldiers]

Three times 🙂 . After a large project its always good to have more than one game

[OB]

I very much enjoy your reports, there is always something new to consider.  Lovely figures too.

OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/

[carojon]

Thanks for you comments chaps, very much appreciated

Well as well as having the fun of seeing different teams of players trying to do a better job than their historical counterparts, it has been really great to raise a lot of money to support the work of the great people at Combat Stress.

There is something really special in being able to take a couple of days to immerse yourself in one game, not to mention all the laughs and great memories created and it’s fun to share some of that with others.

cheers

JJ

 

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[Glenn Pearce]

Hello JJ!

Excellent stuff as always. What a body of work you have on that table! It looks like you were using a 5′ x 9′ table, is that correct? Oddly enough if so that’s the size of my table for my 6mm Baccus figures, and guess what battle were about to play in a few weeks…………………….Talavera! It’s all set and ready to go and then I noticed your post. Did you have to squeeze the scale a little bit to fit the battle and or leave a little bit off as it was too big? I just managed to fit it on my table with all units present and battalion frontages of 60mm in line.

Did you find that 9 turns was long enough or would you have liked to do more? How long were the other games?

Thanks!

Glenn

[carojon]

Hi Glen,

I don’t think I could see to paint 6mm these days, but you would get a lot of battlefield on my table at that scale.

I did a first post on my Talavera table and the scale plan for it a while back now, but you should be able to find if on the Talavera label if you are interested.

The scale for my table is 1″ to 50 paces or 38 yards or four foot to the mile, as laid out in C&G II, so my nine by five foot table gives me a two and a quarter mile by one and a quarter mile battlefield which allows the full length of the British positions with the northern valley included.

As with most Napoeonic scaling, the frontage is the easier part, it is the depth where more compromise comes in but as you can see it works ok and I have been able to include the depth of the Medellin and Cascajal hill features. I used the Fortescue map to get the contours and square miles worked out, which is all in that first post about constructing the Talavera table.

The optimal time for the French attack was from 2 pm to 5 pm as Joseph knew that if the attack had not succeeded in that time he would not have had enough time to pull back behind the River Alberche before nightfall, to put the river between him and the allies as he prepared to fall back to defend Madrid. Therefore at one move to 15 minutes in C&G the French have 12 turns to seal the deal. If you allow for the fact that they took 45mins to an hour to bombard the allied line in their actual attack, our 9 turn game was a fair reflection on the actual battle given that our French team dispensed with the bombardment and moved their guns into close range.

The first game in our series practically followed the original French plan and like the original was not effective as the French guns are too far away to cause enough damage to British lines that simply lay down during their firing.

In all three games we played about nine to ten turns I think and by that time it was obvious that the French would not have broken through in force.

You should be able to model the Spanish positions around Talavera town in 6mm on a big table, and it might be interesting to see if that might have offered the French a better chance of unhinging the allied line, but I doubt it somehow.

Hope that helps

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[Glenn Pearce]

Hello JJ!

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation.

Yes, I’ve managed to get more of the battlefield on my table. I have all of Talavera and the entire Spanish army. If anything to me it indicates that the French have no chance of winning this battle. Disregarding of course the silly things that wargamers do. If the Spanish could maneuver they could even launch an attack on the French left wing. Something that may have been too difficult for them historically, but in a wargame anything can happen.

I see the British in a great defensive position and the French with a slight edge in numbers (excluding Spanish) having an impossible task before them. As you say Joseph is clearly thinking about withdrawing even before the battle starts. I would have pulled back and encouraged the Allies to follow up, but that would probably have played against the French morale and increased Spanish resolve.

Best regards,

Glenn

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