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PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:12 pm 
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#03H. Haslach-Jungingen (HTH)
Overview:
First, the accounts of the battle differ much, both sides see themselves as victorious. French General Dupont seems to have recognized not even after the battle how many Austrians he had faced but rather invented that hew knew how many he faced and that he despite these odds attacked. The Austrians seem to claim that they had driven off the vanguard of a French corps and that they would follow up this success by strongly developing in all direction north of the Danube to exploit this victory.
What ever story you believe, it was likely formed to fit what actually happened. And what happened was that the French, about 5 times smaller than the Austrians, not only held out till the sun went down but that they did it in an aggressive manner that brought them the tactical success of buying time to withdrawn after sunset back to ALbeck to join the Foot Dragoons of Barguey d'Hilliers's division.
So, this is another "special" scenario that depicts a situation that has to be enforced upon the players or else the scenario is highly unlikely to allow a historical result.

Points to consider are:
- The "threat" to the Austrian forces, Mack though the french troops were just the vanguard spearhead of 1 or more French corps. That made him use his troops very cautiousness. Unlikely to happen in the game unless forced.
- The "mistake" of the Austrian cavalry to go off the battlefield, to either hunt after the French baggage park or pursuit the French dragoons, instead of staying to support the other Austrian troops is a thing that currently won't happen as there is no reason why the Austrian player should do that.
- Same counts for the ceasing of action on the Austrian left that happened as most of the Austrian bat. were mauled by the French, again a situation that is unlikely to happen as the engine won't allow such easy destruction of troops, and besides that Austrian player surely won't look at his casualties but will want to finish the French no matter what the cost is.
- The Austrian right wing joined the battle late when the action at Jungingen was over and the Austrian cavalry gone, again unlikely to happen especially with the current possibility of a release as early as 3:00PM, 2 hours before it really moved.
- The terrain may be a bit off considering the Webpage(http://obscurebattles.blogspot.de) about the battle, where there is more forest and a bit closer the Jungingen, that would make the French attempt to hold Jungingen as long as possible a bit easier and also more likely to be conducted by the French. Currently Jungingen seems too far from cover and Jungingen itself too hard to defend.
- The overall point is that the French forces do not have to face the complete Austrian forces at any time, if that happens, as it does now, I don't see any way for the French to win unless the Austrian player has absolutely no clue what he is doing.

Enforcing piecmeal attacks:
1. The Austrian cavalry has to withdraw. I would suggest to set the withdrawal at the historical time of 5:00PM or a bit past it. It may be fair to withdraw the French dragoons too as the Austrians seem to have pursuit them off the battlefield.
2. Around the same time what is left of the Austrian left wing should be completely fixed. It had enough time to conquer Jungingen or to take a beating that it won't be able to further act as fighting force, no matter what has happened it should cease any actions so that the left fells silent while the right starts.
3. With the the fix of the left wing the right wing is unfixed. The right wing of the Austrian forces should not be allowed to move until the action at Jungingen is over, that means around 5:00PM(maybe 2-3 turns earlier to get into position in front of Haslach), a variable release as early as 3:00PM as it's now is much too soon and the French will be crushed between the 2 Austrian wings.

These 3 points sound harsh but they may not even be enough. It could be considered to further fix Austrian forces to enforce the tactical errors(mainly the denial of combined arms tactics) upon the Austrians. Just take the left wings first 2 infantry assaults on Jungingen, the first only with 8th and 20th regiments that was crushed with 2000 Austrian prisoners, the second with 11th and 54th regiments who also lost 2000 prisoners, both times without cavalry and artillery support. The Austrian infantry on the left was effectively destroyed in a bit over an hour, so the 3 points above seem like the bare minimum that has to be added to give the French a chance for victory.
If further fixing is considered it could be split into the 3 separate actions that happened there.
A. The complete left wing is fixed, several turns later(has to be timed so the Austrians can attack Jungingen at 2:30PM) the 8th & 20th Austrian regiments are released so they can make the first assault on Jungingen. Now they could be given till maybe 3:30PM to do what they can and to withdraw before being fixed again.
B. Before the 8th & 20th Austrian regiments are fixed the 11th & 54th Austrian regiments are unfixed so that they can go into Jungingen(happened about 3:15PM) when the 8th & 20th withdraw from it. They could be given till maybe 4:00PM before they withdraw and get fixed again.
C. Finally before the 11th & 54th Austrian regiments are fixed the Austrian cavalry gets unfixed so they can try themselves the French infantry(happened about 4:00PM). They can get a bit over an hour to either maul the French infantry or drive off the French cavalry. After that they get withdrawn.

Further points:
- The Austrians could be completely fixed for the first few turns as their assault into Jungingen seems to have started bot before 2:30PM, currently they reach Jungingen around the same time as the French, but that doesn't allow the French(the combined elite bat.) to fortify(going into to proper defensive position) inside Jungingen. It has to be noted that the Austrians got mauled by the combined elite bat. inside Jungingen and by the assault of the French 9th Legere about 2000 Austrians were taken as prisoners, so a proper time for the French to setup a "trap" is needed.
- Jungingen should maybe be formed more square with walls and hedges around it, and it should contain a chateau hex to simulate the fortified Church, this combined with adding the combined elite bat. should allow the French to hold Jungingen as long as historically and to give the Austrians the beating that they took here. These additions would also secure a strong position from which to fire at any Austrian cavalry who wants to charge French squares outside of Jungingen as it happened historically. The 1st battalion of the 96th Line regiment was repeatedly charged, in one of those charges Mack was wounded. This may also give the French cavalry a chance to take a the disordered Austrian cavalry while it attempts to harass the French infantry near Jungingen. While the French cavalry is simply too small to drive the Austrian cavalry off it may be enough to allow the withdrawal of the French infantry to Haslach.
- It wonders me that the whole Austrian infantry is set at quality C. It's of course an individual thing how to rate them for each battle, but in general I wonder where the over 2 years of training at the channel coast are if Austrians and French are rated the same, especially considering the mess of Austrian reorganization of the tactical formations(less & smaller companies but more battalions) and the composition of larger formations(divisions or columns) that often got changes of their composition weekly. Especially the 20th Austrian infantry, that already performed so bad at Günzburg(where it had D quality), has now C quality too, way too much in my view as that unit surely contributed much to the 2000 Austrians that surrendered when the first Austrian assault failed.
And especially for this battle it should be considered to keep the Austrians one level lower compared to the French so to give the French a better chance to hold out longer in Jungingen.
- Sunset started at 6:41PM and night set in on 7:13pm, so maybe a scenario end at 06:40PM would be a slight give back for all the proposed limitations of the Austrian forces.
- Austrians infantry bat. seem a bit over sized what leads to overall more infantry, but cavalry seems under sized what leads to a lot less cavalry.
- The French infantry seems under sized especially as the combined grenadier bat. is missing. They may just miss about 140 men but the French need every men. Adding these 140 gives room to pull out the elite companies to form the combined elite bat., it was made out of all the elite grenadier and carabinier companies and contained about 456 men, with its extra high quality(I suppose A would be proper) it is the tool absolutely needed for the French to hold Jungingen long enough and to give the Austrian infantry the beating it took.
- As it had snowed for some days now with intermediate days of rain & sleet, it could be considered to make the ground more "muddy", that means slower movement rates and less effective artillery.

A more detailed analysis will follow when my time permits it.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:18 pm 
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I just want to note that I'm usually fine with setting up the historically situation but then allowing the players to do their own thing. But this specially situation deserves a version that allows for a historical outcome, what is currently not possible.
And as there are already 2 alternative versions I would not mind to bring the historical version closer to history, even if that means enforcing a lot things on the Austrian player that he surely won't like.

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 8:42 am 
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I used Bowden's account in his book on the 1805 campaign. I agree that a re-read is in order .... I probably will update these scenarios for the next update. Thanks for the input!

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 9:29 pm 
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Here I also took a closer look at the victory conditions.

Because of the huge difference in force strength, Austrians are about 3 times stronger, it's hard to come up with good victory conditions but the current objectives can give the Allies 200 points what would already be a minor victory although the villages mean nothing compared to the survival of the French forces. For a major victory the Austrians now only need to gain 100 pints what is the equivalent of about 833,33 infantry high French infantry casualties.

I think turning the objectives around would be something worth to consider. Make the objectives Allied so that the French can conquer & hold them and by that win, that may also lead to the wanted forward defense of the French forces.
If these objectives are then lost it's still no French defeat but the conditions shift so that the French needs to survive now to avoid defeat.
To avoid that the Austrian is just going for a Pyrrhic victory there is the need for considerable higher French causalities compared to the Austrian losses or else one can only assume that the Austrians would have withdrawn to Ulm like it historically happened. That means not just 100 points but rather 400-500 points over casualties, French forces yield about 735,48 points so that is doable unless of course the French runs from the map but with objectives that he can take he might not get the idea to run until it's much to late.

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