AAR 6

From: Marshall Mortier (Kevin Kelley)

First let me begin by saying this was one hell of an event. Having attended Borodino '92 I can say there was no comparison. I know full well the amount of effort and planning that goes into something like this, and this was a first class operation all the way.

ID Who played whom, and each person's Mission?

I played Marshall Mortier, Young Guard or Guard Cdr, however I was at the last minute given command of task force Delta consisting of III Cav. Corps (Grouchy), Young Guard (Rouget's Bde), Young Guard Artillery (Sorbier), Vistula Legion and 3rd (Gerard) and 5th (Compans) Div from Davout's I corps. I believe about 18,000 effectives and near to 100 guns (medium and light). The objective was to take the village of Pasarevo and cut the old Smolensk Road and mainly to destroy the Russians opposed to us. Later Bruyere's LC Div of I Cav Corps joined in from their flanker position as well.

Who was my opponent and his mission? Korff's II Cavalry Corps plus Sievers IV Mixed Corps (less Karpov), Baggavout's infantry corps on board C1 and later R1. This was joined by a good part of Kutaisov's Reserve artillery. Their mission was pretty much to stop us.

What did I try? My job was to get the force on board, in good order and in condition to fight. In other words, not tired/tiring, all three combat arms, in formations ready to fight and more or less together in time. Consequently, I controlled the off board part very closely without consulting my game subordinates. Once on the board, they drove the bus, i.e. moved the troops (except the 4 YG Bn).

What did he try? Korff (Tom Garnett) got a lot of flack for his handling of the cavalry but in fact I could not have done it better. He could not use combined arms having no Infantry and very little artillery. I directed the French to form squares, as I knew how tired the French LT cavalry was. When our cavalry retreated Tom was faced by 10 deployed batteries backed by infantry squares.

What did each teammate "try?" I'll leave this to them. I will mention that I had 7 players reporting to me on board R1 at the end. At the start of our commitment it was like, as I told Napoleon, herding cats. By the end they were co-operating, leaving charge/arty lanes, not blocking each other and making co-coordinated 'all arms' attacks.

How did it turn out? About as expected. The light cavalry was at fatigue 12 which meant they had one good charge left in them. The Young Guard was also a bit fatigued but not 3rd and 5th Div nor the Heavy Cav. At 1400 my force was essentially 75% uncommitted with lots of fight left in it.

Lessons learned?

Unity of Command

The French command structure was awkward. Grouchy at first thought he was a Co-Commander and the other Light (Bruyere) Cavalry Division was TACON to his Corps Cdr who was nowhere around. Davout and I co-operated well but there should have been a wing commander assigned on the French right, probably Davout as he was on board for the start. All worked out OK but in historical circumstances this kind of command structure always leads to problems.

Economy of Force

There were just too many troops for the area assigned. When I got the assignment, I laid out the amount of table space and stand sizes on graph paper and saw it would be really crowded. With each infantry division on a 3 Bn column front plus the flanking Lt Cav Bdes covered 1800 paces. With the assumption of two roads my guns extended in column about 30" (900 paces) on each road. That's why I jumped at the chance to divert one of Davout's divisions through that little gap by Muschina, as it left room for LaHoussayes Dragoons to come in on the far right (east). Unfortunately the last umpire who looked at it changed Gerard's 3Bn formation to a 1 Bn wide column. The Vistula Legion would have been a better choice, then, with only 6 Bn.