La Bataille de la Moscowa, Update - 9AM, Sept. 7, 1812

On Friday, July 29 (our time) Gary, Stacy and I got in two more turns to bring us to 8:40 AM, but I forgot the camera and there are no pictures. On the regular War Eagles session on August 6, Gary and I ran the 9:00 turn without Stacy, because we just couldn't resist and nobody else showed up to distract us. Since I forgot the camera again, I made a trip to the game room with the camera on Friday the 12th, with Gary at Dragonflight and Stacy off camping. So there are pictures at 9:00, but a lot happened in the earlier turns, so I will attempt to describe the action with photos of the end point.

You may recall from the photos at 8:00, the Converged Grenadier Division line was about to develop a hole, and the 2 Army West Curaissier were positioned to cover any attempted breakthrough. In due time, the two battalions evaporated and Gary threw the I Corps Cavalry into the hole and we had a great cavalry melee sequence with a stack of French cavalry charging a Curaissier regiment, another Curaissier regiment hammering the exhausted cavalry, another stack of French slamming into the now exhausted Curaissier and in turn being smacked by yet another Curaissier regiment. The I Corps Cavalry were ejected and Russian thoughts turned to counterattacking the infantry. So Major General Duka, commanding the Curaissier Division, took a regiment of cavalry through the opening between the fleches, forcing lots of French units into square and then getting trapped in the engagement when he was unable to break enough of them. The remainder of the division followed him up among the fleches to stay in command, facing toward the French. This failed to take into account the movement range of light cavalry and French light cavalry circled the fleches and hit the Curaissier regiments from behind, inflicting only light casualties, but routing them out of the area. General Duka followed with somewhat greater casualties from the artillery and infantry squares. The Division fell back behind Semenovskaya in disarray, but has reorganized and is still combat capable, though substantially weakened. The French I Corps cavalry is also resting and reorganizing but (oh God, oh God) here comes the entire French Cavalry Reserve under Murat.


On the far right, the Russian reserve has committed the Life Guard Division to cover the gap between the Great Redoubt and the 21st Division of Russian VI Corps. Meanwhile, Eugene has reorganized his forward divisions and (under Gary's command at 9:00) has thrown them en masse at the salient where 21st Division and the Life Guard meet. A VI Corps battery has been destroyed but the Life Guard has not budged.


This is going to turn into a meat grinder as both sides have reserves available. In addition, not visible for the French is Junot's VI Corps and for the Russians, 7th Division of VI Corps.


Meanwhile, Poniatowski and the V Corps have begun arriving on the Old Smolensk Road. The Cossack screen, not (small noise of disgust) commanded by Platov, failed to move to impede the V Corps cavalry on consecutive turns. Now they are looking at a heavy and a light brigade of regular cavalry and a flanking detachment of two light cavalry brigades with horse artillery. Fortunately the flanking detachment has been even more tardy than the Cossacks and has rough terrain to cover as well. They may get out of it yet....


UPDATE: Cumulative casualties as of 9:20 AM (includes casualties reported at 8:00 AM):

The French and Allied forces have lost 13 batteries of artillery, 6 battalions of infantry, 5 cavalry regiments and 5 officers.

The Russian forces have lost 6 foot batteries and a horse battery, a dragoon regiment, a jager regiment (2 battalions), a grenadier regiment (2 battalions) and 7 of the 11 battalions in the Converged Grenadier Division of VIII Corps. The rest of them are not long for this world.... Wasn't it Napoleon who said a division wouldn't last much more than an hour in combat?

There are many depleted regiments and battalions still in action, with the Russian infantry probably bearing more casualties than the French battalions. The Russian cavalry probably has as many casualties as the French, but they are spread among active units.

Next session is Saturday, August 20 starting at 5:00 PM. If you are following along, you are now up to speed and have no excuse for not participating....

La Battaile de la Moscowa, Update

The next session of the game, we ran another hour, or three game turns. Eugene finished brutally shoving the jagers out of Borodino, then spent the next two turns reorganizing those troops and bringing up another division to mass for an assault on the Russian line, covered by a few batteries on the hill above Borodino. Pot shots by the French batteries resulted in the odd casualty until the French batteries were put out of action by the Redoubt's counter battery fire. Here's the situation at 8:00 AM:


Meanwhile, Davout is filtering artillery into his front line and the Russian Reserve artillery are building grand batteries in the center. Left center are four batteries partially behind the Converged Grenadiers line, but as Davout's artillery destroys one battalion after another, more and more of this gun line has a field of fire. To the right are five more batteries on the ridge above Semanovskaya. One is completely obscured by friendly cavalry in the ravine (can't fire over the head of friendlies) and another can only support the Converged Grenadiers, blocked from supporting the Grenadier Division by the same cavalry.


Here's what it looks like to Davout and Ney, a frontal assault on tough troops and too much artillery:


It's not all that bad, while keeping the pressure on the Converged Grenadiers and Grenadier Divisions, Davout has moved Friant and Desaix's divisions around the CG's flank. In the meantime, the French artillery to the left of Desaix has just about punched a hole in the CG line, though the 2 Army West Curaissier Division has moved up to block any breakthrough by the French I Corps Cavalry Division. 'Oops' is a III Corps battalion accidentally swept up in the, uhmm, ....sweep to the right. UPDATE: Gary says that Girard and Morand have been detached to Eugene's IV Corps on the French left, so Davout's 1st Corps is deployed Compans (gold lower half of the counter) on the left with the Corps Artillery, Desaix (white lower half, grey-yellow-grey stripe) engaging the Converged Grenadier Division and stretching to the right with some Guard artillery, and Friant (grey lower half, yellow-green-yellow stripe) working around the flank. Desaix and Friant have become a bit intermingled during their attacks.


Part of the Russian III Corps 21st Division has moved forward through the brush to extend the flank, but in reaching for better ground have left themselves in for trouble. Davout's huge corps is still extending and will overlap them. Here's a look at the French extreme right at 8:00 AM


I have a casualty report as of the start of the 8:00 AM turn we see in these photos but do not have the notes with me. I will update this post when I get them in hand. The French have suffered much heavier casualties till now, but things may even out soon.

UPDATE: Casualties as of 8:00 AM, after 6 turns:

The French and Allied forces have lost 5 leaders, including two of Napoleon's Aides de Camp, Armand Caulaincourt and Louis-Alexandre Berthier. 4 artillery batteries have been put out of action, 2 infantry battalions and 4 small cavalry regiments have disintegrated.

The Russian forces have lost 2 officers (IV Cav and 12 Cav Brigadier), a 12 Cav regiment routed and still running (flippin' cowards), 2 batteries and 1 battalion.

God is an iron

Behold the Texas Miracle:




The only net gainer in jobs in Texas is..........................

the Government sector. In fact, in that hotbed of economic activity in the midst of deficit debacle, government employment went up by 7.2 percent compared to 1.2 percent for the US as a whole.... Surely there is a lesson here.

La Battaile de la Moscowa

Gary played in a board game at a miniatures convention.... At Enfilade, the author of a rules upgrade for the venerable La Battaile series of tactical level Napoleonic board games, presented his newly published, gussied up version of La Battaile de la Moscowa. Gary played, it is gorgeous, and the rules worked very well, playing a massive board game to a conclusion in a single day of gaming. So, Gary went out and bought one (and he is at Dragonflight this weekend, playing with the author again). Completely independently, Stacy has also purchased a copy, so there was no other choice and we have dived in. Gary and I spent a weekend of gaming days just punching and clipping the counters, laying out the maps and deploying the troops. Yep. It's big.

Picture for you.


All pictures are posted at full resolution (2816 x 2112 pixels), so you can click on the picture above and make it bigger than your computer screen, then scroll about to see what's where. Generally, the French are to the upper right on both sides of the river. The Russians are to the left and down, all on the left side of the river except an outpost in the town of Borodino, about the middle of the map. The game runs in twenty minute, interactive turns and each counter is a battalion or regiment of infantry, regiment of cavalry or battery of guns. Interactive turns means it is not Igo/Ugo, instead at the beginning of each turn, players designate maneuver units (usually divisions but it is possible to move entire Corps if everything is just right, and you never, ever have enough MU to move everybody), throw chits in a cup for the maneuver units and some administrative actions, then draw chits and execute them. Who goes first or last, which always matters, is randomized over the field for more realistic command problems.

The first hour consumed our first game night. In random events at the start of each turn, the French Guard artillery and the Russian Artillery reserve were released, both unlikely, both having profound results on the game. Also having profound results on the history of our little cardboard world, in the first turn General and Aide de Camp to Napoleon Armand Caulaincourt became an incidental casualty of artillery fire. This will result in there being even more confusion about What Really Happened, since in our world Armand wrote one of the few eyewitness (and probably the single best) accounts of the battle from a command perspective.

The general plan of action in the cardboard world was the French I Corps, under Gary's command and the French III Corps under Stacy's orders launched the traditional advance on the Russian left, with Davout's I Corps moving at and to the left of the fleches (earthworks) in the Russian left center and Ney's III Corps moving on the Russian VIII Corps' Grenadier division in an advanced position. Eugene's IV Corps massed an assault on the Borodino toehold.

In the 6:40 AM turn, French maneuvers turned the ends of Russian positions. Stacy had two divisional assaults, one with Ney and one with Eugene on Borodino, both shown here. Off the picture to the left is Davout's I Corps extending around the Russian leftmost flank and assaulting the very end.


Closeup of Eugene's assault on Borodino. Notice the three little Russian Jager battalions about to get plowed under by French human waves from three sides.... "Not good. Very not good."



At the same time, Michel Ney's III Corps assaults the Grenadier Division wrapping around the Russian right. The Grenadier's are outnumbered about 2 to 1 and flanked. Not quite as bad as Borodino, but not too likely.


Here we see the right division of Davout's I Corps extending around the Russian extreme left which is anchored on a hill top in the heavy scrub brush.



The results of the Borodino assault were pretty much as you would expect. Two of the Russian jager battalions were punched out, routed and decimated and streaming to the rear in confusion. One lucky (?) battalion managed to disorder part of the assault on it's position and held the village with casualties. Next turn....

The Grenadier's and Ney's lead division had an inconclusive melee. Each side has one stack disordered, everybody took casualties, a few more French than Russian. The position held for now.

But this, is just ridiculous. Davout's assault on the far left, about 3 to 1 odds has been knocked back with substantial casualties in disarray. Even flanked and outnumbered, the Russian battalions waiting uphill in the brush have gobsmacked everyone. 'cause

Grenadiers!

Over here is the VIII Corps' Converged Grenadier Division. Bad dudes in the front line.... ;o)


All of this happened back on July 1, so this post is a bit late. I will update the game story as it unfolds and have two more game time hours to catch up....

I just don't get it....

More things that I cannot understand what passes for logic in the minds of their advocates: What conceivable benefit can charter schools and vouchers have on the public good of education for all?

Regardless of the individual merits of any particular charter school, the promotion of charter schools collectively is key to the ... strategy for destroying public education, because voucher-funded charter schools will siphon money and the best students from public schools.

That, in turn, will degrade public schools, at which point advocates for charter schools and privatization will point to public schools and say, "look! Public schools are a failed experiment. We need more vouchers, more charter schools!"

I have elided the imputed conspiracy from the statement because I don't think it's really meaningful to the discussion.

It should be axiomatic that you don't solve a school's problems by shipping its best and brightest students somewhere else. Leadership in schools isn't just from the teachers. Start the reform discussion there, not in seeking to set up new ways to institutionalize discrimination.

What He Said....

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

And before the real bullshit starts, I have an Obama 2012 sticker on my car already and am a member of Team Obama at the DNC, with an auto withdrawal every month from my checking account. I am voting for the guy in 2012 no matter what, because even though he has many flaws, he will be head and shoulders above whatever swamp thing crawls out of the primordial ooze of lies, homophobia, racial resentment, fearmongering, religious triumphalism, and class warfare that will be the GOP primaries.

Abortion.

Abortion is a medical procedure. It should be a matter for medical professionals, a woman and any personal advisors, religious or secular, she chooses to consult. When government criminalizes a medical procedure, you get this, which is clearly, without any question, WRONG:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/pregnant-women-need-support-not-prison

The facts of this case are heartbreaking. On December 23, 2010, Shuai, a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was suffering from a major depressive disorder, attempted to take her own life. Friends found her in time and persuaded her to get help. Six days later, Shuai underwent cesarean surgery and delivered a premature newborn girl who, tragically, died four days later.

On March 14, 2011, Shuai was arrested, jailed, and charged with murder and attempted feticide. Had Shuai, who is being represented by National Advocates for Pregnant Women and local attorneys, not been pregnant when she attempted suicide, she would not have been charged with any crime at all.

Some discussion at Balloon Juice, wherefrom I found about it:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/03/31/yes-dear-i-do-remember-when-women-were-people-too/#more-64834

No one who has either suffered major depression, nor anyone who has loved someone thus afflicted would see the state of Indiana’s actions as anything other than vicious.

Yes, that would be me, too.

I urge anyone to read the ACLU post completely. Comment here will be responded to with as much civility as I can muster, which is usually quite a lot. But you don't have to use profanity to blister paint, so if you think you can defend this, be prepared.