Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I have been viewing this thread with intrest as I was hoping to validate my own impressions of the NRC game. I consider myself an average player and my record would bear this out including both the HPS & BG series (Victories--15 maj win-4 min-12 draws Losses--15 maj-4min). My record at NRC 1 maj victory- 6 draws- 4 maj losses. My feeling is the engine favors the Russian side way too much. The clincher for me was charging 220 militia west of Utitza with 980 undisorderd low fatigue heavy cavalry (carabiniers)from both flanks and the front and losing the melee with 260 losses.Then 2 turns later the 150 remaining militia were fired on from 1 hex range with flank shots and the rear by 3 light bns and meleed from the front by 1200 B quality infantry and the melee failed with 80Fr/20Ru losses [:(] I have actually refused to fight here other than custom designed scenarios derived from Al Amos' advanced studies where the forces were mirror copies of each other and without the golden morale which didnt work quite right due to the map scale irregardless of pdt tweaking and just didnt have the historical feel. I am working now to port the Wagram/Waterloo company level pdt to this game and if I can find a map where the scale seems more correct and then we will see if its worth replaying.

Maréchal Drew Stone
Duc d'Hanau et Prince d'Abensberg
Commandant de la Garde Impériale

"Toujours qui s'avance et à l'audace"
"Perhaps I should not insist on this bold maneuver, but it is my style, my way of doing things."

Maréchal Stone,
It seems you have had poor choice of opponents at NRC. In the campaign I am 1 major win and 1 major loss but in the stand alone scenarios I am something like 2 wins and 6 losses.

Perhaps I am the allied player who is the exception that proves the rule, as they say. Overall, I too am about a .500 player.
regards,

FML Jim Pfluecke
Austrian Cavalry Corps

Austrian Kavalry Reserve

I agree with Jim. Depends on the quality of opponent. And the scenario of course. I have had some disasterous and humiliating defeats in NRC. Smolensk was plain embarassing. Even the campaign games I've won or drawn are so bloody the next encounter is a French walkover. I may draw against Dierk but I'll be lucky if I can muster more than a few men for the next round. I'd rate my success as no more than 50-50.

Generalissimo
Opolchenie Korpus
Russian Army

Always eager to see both sides of a story, as one should, I have started to read stuff on 1812 that's decidedly from the other side of the fence.

I started with two eminent East German military historians (you may or may not know that decent German military history happened almost exclusively east of the dividing line from 1945 to the 1980s), from whose rather summary account I have already learned that while the Russian high command made some rather questionable strategic decisions the fact that the Russian people were fighting a rightful war of liberation from oppression made their eventual victory historically inevitable.

I moved on to Clausewitz' <i>Der Russische Feldzug von 1812</i> which, on account of the author's vivid style and dry humour, is a brillant read. Clausewitz was with Russian Imperial HQ from the start of the campaign so he was rather close to strategic decision-making. After reading what he had to say about the Camp of Drissa scheme I can't wait to see what he thinks of the further stages in the campaign.

I am most looking forward, however, to delving deeper into the German translation (Zürich 1944, would you believe it) of the classic work by that eminent Soviet historian, Tarlé, originally published in Moscow in 1938. Already I have learned that the War of 1812 was the most imperialistic of all imperialistic wars of the era. I can't wait to see how the story develops.

We live to learn!! [8D]

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

Hm, would Napoleon be an Imperialist or a Counterrevolutionary? [:D]

(Oh well, at least he wasn't a *shudder* Revisionist!)

FZM Freiherr Gary McClellan
Generalissimus Imperial Austrian Army
Portner Grenadier Battallion
Allied Coalition C-in-C

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />Hm, would Napoleon be an Imperialist or a Counterrevolutionary? [:D]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Imperialist. "Als Eroberer, nicht als Befreier drang Napoleon in Rußland ein." ("As conqueror, not as liberator, did Napoleon invade Russia"; Eugen Tarlé, <i>Napoleon in Russland 1812</i>, Zürich 1944, p. 11.)

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

Dierk,

I'm sure you will not learn much about the warfare from Tarle. But about all sorts of politics, hidden motives and a great overall view of the campaign and situation in the world. And it's really easy to read. I'm sure leaving out all these "correct" words about imperialism, capitalism tec. is not a problem.[:)]

If you have Clausewitz' letters to his sister, in the last russian print they are included in the book, it's even more interesting. If you read the letter at the same time as the corresponding period, not only you'll get a strategic overview, but a personal feeling too. A must for a modern "microhistory"[:I]

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Mayor Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
commander of Little Russian grenadiers regiment</b></center>

Ah, and I was thinking he'd qualify as a Counter-revolutionary for what he did to the French Revolution...

That's it, he was a Counterrevolutionary Imperialist! Almost the antichrist of Maxist thought!! [8D]


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />Hm, would Napoleon be an Imperialist or a Counterrevolutionary? [:D]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Imperialist. "Als Eroberer, nicht als Befreier drang Napoleon in Rußland ein." ("As conqueror, not as liberator, did Napoleon invade Russia"; Eugen Tarlé, <i>Napoleon in Russland 1812</i>, Zürich 1944, p. 11.)

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

FZM Freiherr Gary McClellan
Generalissimus Imperial Austrian Army
Portner Grenadier Battallion
Allied Coalition C-in-C

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />Ah, and I was thinking he'd qualify as a Counter-revolutionary for what he did to the French Revolution...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Wrong revolution, maybe? You know what the Marxist-Leninists think of bourgeois revolutions.

Then, of course, there's always the twist of someone from the wrong class objectively promoting the inevitable course of the class struggle in spite of his own motives. [:D]

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

A masked man (well, maybe not) races up and says: You know what the Marxist-Leninists think of bourgeois revolutions - "Thankyou!" [:D][;)]

GdD Mark Oakford
III Corps, ADN