Talavera - the results!

THE RESULTS!

Major British victory - the infiltration of French forces west is insignificant in comparison to the relatively light (in British eyes!) losses suffered by the Spanish forces. Well, alright, upon having one too many glasses of port the British will no doubt admit Spanish losses have been horrendous, but the situation has been saved because the French losses were even more horrific!

A French attempt to get the British infantry on the Cerro de Medellin to surrender at the last minute was laughed off!

Major Spanish victory - despite the aforementioned terrible Spanish casualties and the brave attempts of Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry to flatten the entire allied army the Spanish achieved their objective handsomely. Had Latour-Maubourg had greater back-up it may have been a different story, but the stoic Spanish defence has granted them a fabulous victory as night falls while the dejected French draw away...

... or do they? ...

The desertion of King Joseph during the battle for an urgent wig-fitting appointment he’d forgotten about may have signified that all was not going well. They may well have been encouraged had they known the trouble Payne was having trying to lead the reluctant Spanish cavalry forward (they really disapproved of being led by a British general - read the original game orders for an explanation folks!).

The tenacious fight of the remaining French commanders (as well as Latour-Mauboug, Victor is sure to be mentioned in Paris for his heroic fortitude!) caused great damage to the enemy (as well as to themselves), and the sheer scale of this success always the French to frame this as a minor victory on the grounds that they shall be able to replace their losses more easily than their enemies. True this is debatable, but that isn’t going to stop the claim being made!

So, everyone has won - only the British and Spanish have won a bit more than the French on this occasion! [Thanks to you all for taking part - see you in Borodino!]javascript:emoticonp('')

Thanks Richard

An interesting result!

Can some kind person let me know why I always end up on the defeated side in these Napoleonic Battles Mega Games? So far my 100% record of defeat goes:

1) First Talavera - as a inexperienced player take a small command of the Artillery and a regt of Lt Horse from Victors corp. Find good position for guns & knock out English Artillery who are still on move. Keep fireing and wipe out more units than I have up to the point Payne English cavalry corp turn french Flank and ride down half the army inc me.

2) First Borodino - take French IV corp on North Side of river - cut two large forces of Russian Cavalry who crossed onto my side of the river to bits as the (blindly?) advance into my Cavalry backed up with Artillery & foot support - and pour cross river Artillery support into Russian right flank. IV corp ends battle hardly touched while Russian Right is a total mess with no cavalry reserve to cover its retreat. Surely victory is ours??????.......Ah No! French right has totally mismanaged attack and ground before Russian Grand Battery is covered in dead French. French Guard including those wonderfull 12 Pounders has not fired a shot and is intact along with IV corp rest of French Army is a mess. At best its a slight French tactical victory, strategic disaster.

3) Bloodandgutz - Given Russian Guard and C & C position, French Confederation of Rhine Allies advance in all directions on turn one (an error) so are spread out and risking defeat in detail, even better early on Russians/Austrians capture map and letter sent by French C & C which with some other shared int gives Russians/Austrians full French Order of battle and location. We have much more Artillery, French more infantry inc a alarming French Guard its huge and very very good, Cavalry about even but French better balanced. So using experience of Borodino we want to eastablish Grand Batteries and let French come to use avoiding French Guard for as long as possible.

Cunning Russian plan produced to not contest most of the Bridges, esp ones close to the Guard, and wipe out Confederation of Rhine Corp with whole of Parrocks corp and elements of the Russian Guard and the Russian Cavalry corp. Also wipe out small French Cavalry corp which was between me and the Austrians.

Stage two of the plan was to fight the French Guard and other main French corp south of river to the last Austrian (well what are allies for?) while Russian Guns blasted the hell out of the French from the North. I trust readers (and perhaps even the French) will agree not a bad plan even if a bit expensive in Austrians.

What could go wrong you ask? Well parts did go right........The Confederation forces and the small Cavalry Corp were effectively wiped out, The French Guard marched into a Artillery Kill Zone...... attacking across a bridge covered by 13 batteries of cannon is tough, in total my 50 unit corp wiped out over a 100 hostile units from all five hostile corps. While the 2nd small French Cavalry Corp attacked acoss a bridge and rode into the strongest of all the Russian Corps......Russian Cavalry had 12 Horse Artillery & 25 Guard Cavalry waiting for them.

Sadly what went wrong was the commanders of the Russian Cavalry and main Austrian corp turned out to be French agents who failed to deploy Gun lines as ordered then then dropped out at the most key moments you could imagine allowing their static troops to be crushed and other corps to get tangled up in their routs. Myself, Gen Galliers & Gen Parrork are still claiming we were stabbed in the back rather than defeated. But that is not what the record says.......boo hiss!!

3) 2nd Talaveria - As M-L in charge of French reserve Cavalry recall first battle and move right to avoid nasty disordering vines etc and to meet expected attack of Payne. Attack comes French Right in trouble but my Dragoons arrive to save day and wipe out English Cavalry (who end battle with one unit of lights left). I dispute that English can claim major Victory since with Cavalry wiped and flank and rear exposed they spent most of battle cowering in Square have lost all their artillery, guards and lights and only have 9 units of foot left. Would have had even less if Josef had not ordered me to leave 5 Units of Cavalry and by horse artillery battery behind. That battery would have had a field day!

After fixing the English clashed with Spanish putting a lot of them in Square and defeating Spanish large numbers of Spanish Horse (understand that only six units of Spanish Horse now intact).

At start of battle I had 35 Cavalry & 1 Horse Artillery. loan six units to Josef to help left, two loaned to Victor and end up with 23 (ok 3 in rout) inc a rescued guard cavalry unit in winning positions and 6 destroyed under my command. I think we must have won this time !!!

Ah.......No some how a bunch of D class Spanish foot with French Cavalry to their rear have defeated 3 French corps inc Light and Guard Infantry. Can someone please let me know how the ******** this happened?


Final thought ..........I have signed up for Borodino 2 as a Russian........any bribes from fellow Russian commanders for Stuart "Jonah" Bailey to transfer to a French Command should be sent via Richard.

Hey Jonah, I used to think I knew what I was doing in these games - now I'm not so sure....

There was a Pyramids game once - I was some native commander and caught a French corps on the hop and all in column of march and destroyed the lot! However my luck ran out when all my other colleagues perished and eventually so did I. Result? It was a glorious French Victory!


And its not (just) about the winning and as Payne in the last battle (Talavera 2) I lost two commands to you and following my Commanders instructions I needed up working for a French victory by giving orders to 4 lost units of Spaniards that routed when I ordered them forward. But my relatively small cavalry did cause a few problems for you Frogs at the start. I'd have made a fighting withdrawal but at the critical point - breaking contact under attack ........ my paper orders to Agema got lost. The rest is history.....

Wellesley sees the result as a vindication of his generalship and well the boy did do good!

gotta go perhaps more anon?

Speaking from the other side of the hill as one of the "defeated" French .......and you have to ask if this was a campaign battle would the allies have been in any condition to fight or even run away from Sault when he showed up a few days after the battle?

I think the credit has to go to the Spanish commanders rather than Wellington (boo hiss typical English trying to steal others glory) who from my view point never moved from his Hill, spent most of the battle in square and never got one unit past the objective line.

The fact that French Infantry decided to make column attacks across a river and up hill into formed foot and guns if probably more a reflection on French Generalship than Wellingtons. Still can not figure out why French foot and superior Artillery just did not take their time and shot his fixed in position squares to bits.......my Cavalry would have been happy to pick off the damaged and routing units.

So is anyone going to say what the Spanish did to the two missing corps of my Army??????????????

Oh and guess what? In the next battle the Russians did not want me (Clearly not forgiven at Court for the Surrender of the Russian Guard and calling out the Russain Cavalry Commander after Bloodangutz) so I am French again.

Sorry in advance to all fellow French Commanders if the curse hits again.

Ah, but I have to stick up for old Wellesley - Hi did what was needed: After i disastrously turned an early mass French rout into the loss of my command why could he do when faced with all your cavalry? Answer - form square and defend. What would have stopped him doing that was if L-M and others had moved up north and continued to pour units in the gap where my force should have been.

I guess your colleagues were not quick enough or the comms were as often are in these games - poor.

I don't know what the Spanish managed to do - I think though one of them dropped out and the other Portago picked up the massed militia and ran them as one commander... but i was running away at the time!

As to BnG: I was about to move the French IG north of the river and attack when the commander to my Right finally answered my demand for info and a map that showed we had lost the Right flank and two{?} corps and I was able to reverse the move in time to defeat them early and then marched all those wonderful men into the mincer you set for me.... whilst all my colleagues crossed or stayed north of the river and won the game........

That said - I'd be happy to have you only side in a future battle.

Oh how the other side sees it....